'''A:''' Moshi Monsters is currently broken in Infinity; we haven't figured out why yet. To play Moshi Monsters, you can download either [https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/downloads/ Flashpoint Ultimate] or our [https://drive.google.com/open?id=1oPQG5lunx9ne3UBvgfCd6bDbM5ZJo3y9 standalone Moshi Monsters package].

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'''A:''' Moshi Monsters is currently broken in Infinity; we haven't figured out why yet. To play Moshi Monsters, you'll have to download [https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/downloads/ Flashpoint Ultimate].

Revision as of 01:16, 24 April 2020

Be sure to check our normal FAQ in the Discord if you don't see your question here, then ask in #help-me-please if you are still not satisfied.

A: If you have a lot of free disk space, bandwidth, and time, you should get Flashpoint Ultimate. But if you don't have a lot of free space, want to get Flashpoint up and running quickly, or only want to play a few games, you should get Flashpoint Infinity. See below for a detailed description of each edition of Flashpoint.

Flashpoint Ultimate: The full package. All games are fully playable offline. Also includes a logo and screenshot for each game. As of 7.1 this comes in a 240GB+ 7Z, so you'll need at least 530GB of free disk space to comfortably download and extract it.

Flashpoint Infinity: A minimalist build - games download as you choose to play them. Once games are fully downloaded, they will work offline. Only Flash and HTML5 games are available in the base package, but it's only 300MB, meaning you can get up and running quickly. Additional downloadable upgrades add logos, screenshots, and other game technologies like Shockwave and Unity Web Player.

Flashpoint Core: A lightweight copy of Flashpoint with one game per platform to aid curation. For developers and curators only!

A: If you have Flashpoint Ultimate, you can use FlashpointUpdater. There is no updater available for Flashpoint Infinity or Core yet; you'll need to download and extract the new version. You can transfer any playlists you'd like to keep to a new version of Flashpoint by copying the JSON files out of the Data\Playlists folder from your old Flashpoint folder. Next, paste the JSON files into the Data\Playlists folder in your new Flashpoint folder.

A: Go into the Launcher folder that's inside your Flashpoint directory and look for Flashpoint.exe. Right-click it and click Send to > Desktop (create shortcut), or drag it to your taskbar or start menu. CAUTION: Do NOT drag Flashpoint.exe directly to your desktop as that will move the file, which will make the launcher not work.

A: Many web games have what is known as a sitelock, which means that they will not work unless they are being played on the original site they were hosted on. Since the projector is not connected to the Internet and cannot identify those sites, those games will refuse to load on it. Flashpoint gets around this by running the games through a local server proxy which, simply put, tricks them into thinking they are being played on the original sites they were meant to be played on. Moreover, web games are commonly spread across multiple files rather than just one; those are known as multi-asset games. Those games cannot run properly on just the projector on its own, but Flashpoint also deals with that. For more details, see How Flashpoint Works.

A: Flashpoint simulates the internet in order to make games think they are playing on their original websites (see the previous answer for a more detailed explanation of that). Since the files are laid out the same way as they would be on the internet, games are not separated cleanly into ZIPs or "ROMs." Flashpoint Infinity downloads games on demand, so you can keep only the games you like by using Flashpoint Infinity.

A: Follow our Curation Tutorial to add games to Flashpoint! Flashpoint comes with standalone projectors for Flash and Shockwave, and in some cases it will work to simply open an SWF with a Flash projector or open a DCR with a Director projector. But to ensure that games are preserved and work properly, you'll need to curate them.

A: Flashpoint does not have any viruses. However, a number of antivirus programs falsely detect certain files in Flashpoint as viruses. Avast, AVG, and BitDefender are even known to render Flashpoint inoperable; you'll need to follow the instructions for Troubleshooting Antivirus Interference.

A: Requesting - This option adds your game to an ever-growing list of ones people want added. You will need to fill out the request form which takes 1-5 minutes. Chances of game being saved by any of the curators is small because there are thousands of games waiting on the list, some of which have been waiting for over a year. If you want to increase the chances of it being saved, we suggest that you try to write an engaging description of the game and/or the reason you want it saved.

Curating - This is the process of actually adding the game to Flashpoint. It requires testing the game using procedures detailed in our curation guides. It takes about 30 minutes to do the first time, but as you learn the process you can get it under 5 minutes.
To get started, follow our Curation Tutorial.
Once you curate a game, it will be saved and added to the next version of Flashpoint.

A: The easiest way to check these kinds of things is to right-click the game window and look at the context menu that appears. If it says something about Flash, it's a Flash game. If it says nothing out of the ordinary or no context menu appeared, it's probably HTML5. If the game is 3D, it's either Shockwave, or Unity Web Player (or rarely Flash).
You can also use inspect element to look at the embed of the game for the following file extensions:

.swf - Flash

.dcr/.dir/.dxr - Shockwave

.unity3d - Unity Web Player

.jar/.class - Java

.stk - ShiVa3D

.xap - Silverlight

.vmo - 3DVIA

If a game runs only in Internet Explorer, references a .cab file, and is not one of the above types of games, it is probably an ActiveX game.

If a game does not require any plugins or ActiveX controls to run, then it is probably an HTML5 (or HTML/JavaScript) game.

If it's something else it may be under one of our other platforms, but these are the most common types.

A: They won't disappear by themselves. However, once Flash support is removed from browsers, most people won't be able to use flash content unless they downgrade their browser version. In that situation, the sites that are hosting the games might decide to remove the Flash games because the vast majority of people won't be able to play them anymore. As we cannot rely on the assumption that sites might stay up, we're working hard to grab as many games as possible while they're still here. For more information on the various browsers' road map for Flash's End of Life, see Flash EOL.

A: Flashpoint Infinity does not come with the game logos by default due to size reasons. However, they can be downloaded as an upgrade from the Flashpoint Downloads page. Once it's finished downloading, unzip the file into your Flashpoint folder, then restart Flashpoint Launcher if it's open. The logos are only visible in Grid viewing mode; You can change the view mode using the drop-down menu that is situated at the bottom-right corner of the launcher window.

A: Make sure whatever program you used to extract the 7z file didn't create an extra folder with the name of the 7z (e.g. FP71-stage3) inside your main Flashpoint folder. If you see such a folder, simply move the content of that folder out of it into your main Flashpoint folder (both Data folders will merge).

Flashpoint Infinity comes with only Flash and HTML5 support from the start to reduce size, but the other platforms can be downloaded as an upgrade. If you are using Flashpoint Infinity and looking for a game or animation that runs on a different plugin, you will need to download the Other Technologies pack from the Home tab of the launcher.

Make sure you spelled the name of the game/animation correctly when searching. If a search fails, try searching for partial names rather than full names. Varying punctuation is also a common culprit. We are planning on overhauling the Search feature to allow for more customizable and dynamic browsing in the future, so stay tuned!

Make sure you don't have a playlist selected by accident; Searching in a playlist will look for the game in that playlist specifically. So make sure you have All Games selected in the left-hand column before making your search.

It's also possible that we don't have the game yet. If you wish to request a game or an animation to be added to Flashpoint, you can do so via the respective request forms that you can find in Game Master List and Animation Master List. Alternatively, if you want to ensure that the game/animation is added, you can learn how to curate it yourself by following our Curation Tutorial. In either case, please thoroughly search the master lists above to make sure that we don't have the game or animation already.

A: No. HTML5 is an entirely different technology, so it's impossible for them to be converted automatically.
Developers could port them over to the platform, but most will not have the time or resources to do it. Besides, the capabilities of HTML5 are different from those of Flash, so a game ported to HTML5 will never be identical to the original.

A: The game has to be archived there in the first place, which may or may not happen. Wayback is specifically poor at grabbing multi-asset games (games that use more than one file), so chances are that it will not work there.
Games with sitelocks won't work there even if they are archived.

A: The games and all of their assets are stored in the Server\htdocs folder within Flashpoint's directory (wherever you extracted it to). To find the files for a specific game, right-click the game entry in Flashpoint Launcher, then click "Open File Location."

A: You can find the location where each platform keeps their save data in Save Data Locations. For your convenience, there are two batch scripts included with Flashpoint which can be used to backup and restore save data to another computer or drive; Namely Saves Manager - Backup.bat and Saves Manager - Restore.bat. If you want to delete save data you are going to have to find and delete it manually at the locations listed on the aforementioned page.

A: Make sure you unzip the program, as it will not work while still zipped. Please use 7-Zip when doing this, as WinRAR is known to fail. If Flashpoint is still not working, follow the Troubleshooting steps in the Readme.

A: The download was probably corrupted. Browsers are not designed to download gigantic files like Flashpoint Ultimate, so you'll need to use a download manager such as Free Download Manager to download the file.

A: You'll need to check whether the hash of the file you downloaded matches the expected hash. First, install 7-Zip if you don't have it already. Next, follow these steps:

Right-click the 7Z file that you downloaded.

Choose "CRC SHA...", then choose SHA1 or CRC32.

Go to the Flashpoint downloads page and click the button labeled "Archive.org" underneath the Flashpoint Ultimate heading. This should take you to Flashpoint Ultimate's Archive.org entry.

Scroll down and find the "Download Options" sidebar on the right. Click the "Show All" link.

Click the file ending in _files.xml. For example, on Flashpoint 6.3's page, the file is called Flashpoint6.3_files.xml.

You should see a list of files in XML format. Check the hash listed for the file, and make sure it matches the hash you found in Step 2. For example, if you chose CRC32 in Step 2, make sure the CRC32 hashes are the same.

For Flash games that open in the Flash projector, you can drag the corner of the window to resize it. Do your best to maintain the window's original aspect ratio, otherwise some games might behave in unexpected ways.

For Flash, Shockwave, and Java games, you can play them in fullscreen using IntegerScaler. However, this program doesn't play well with multi-monitor setups.

For most games that open in a browser, you can press Ctrl + and Ctrl - (Ctrl-plus and Ctrl-minus) to zoom in and out. In most cases, fullscreen is not possible for these games.

A: Open the Game Master List and wait for it to finish loading. (If you're looking for an animation, use the Animation Master List instead.) Then, press Ctrl-F to search the list. Since this will search exact matches, be sure to try partial titles and account for alternative punctuation. If you're searching the Master List on iOS or Android, you can follow the instructions here.

A: Probably not. To support always online games, the emulation of a server is required. To be able to do that is almost as much work as all of Flashpoint itself, so it really wouldn't be practical to put time into.

A: In order for Flashpoint's browsers to load ActiveX games, a small and harmless change needs to be made to the registry. This tells Flashpoint's browsers how to load the ActiveX control for the game you want to play. Just accept the prompt and you'll be able to play the game!

A: Flashpoint uses TheWorld Browser for its ActiveX support. It is a very lightweight wrapper around Internet Explorer's engine, so it can load ActiveX controls just like Internet Explorer can. It has a significant advantage over Internet Explorer though: it allows us to use Internet Explorer's engine with Flashpoint but not change your Internet Explorer settings. It can load files through Flashpoint's proxy and load Flashpoint's ActiveX controls that do not work with Internet Explorer's default settings.

All of the ActiveX controls supported by Flashpoint are included in the FPSoftware\ActiveX folder; no ActiveX controls are downloaded from the internet. When you launch an ActiveX game, its control is registered using the standard Windows component, regsvr.exe. First, Flashpoint Launcher runs startActiveX.bat, which runs regsvr.exe, which calls a function in the DLL of the ActiveX control, which finally registers the ActiveX control so Internet Explorer can use it. No two ActiveX DLLs do exactly the same thing when registering themselves, though.

Error with proxy: Error reading original system proxy settings. Make sure you have registry read permission. Error code: 12178
Games may not work until the error is fixed. Close Flashpoint and open it again once the error is fixed.

A: This error means that the WinHTTP Web Proxy Auto-Discovery Service is disabled. Follow these steps to re-enable the service:

Error: Error occured in whilst handling the client: Could not establish connection to gateway.discord.gg

A: This is normal behavior. All of your HTTP traffic passes through the Redirector while Flashpoint is running; see How Flashpoint Works for more details. Because of this, if there are errors in your HTTP traffic, those errors may appear in the Redirector window.

A: No, you will need to submit a new, separate curation. Because of the way that Flashpoint's metadata is organized, alternate versions of a game must be of the same Platform (technology) as the main game entry.